


It's getting hard to remember your face

by Anna Marie Darkholme (WierdAlienFantasies)



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-27 18:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16225208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WierdAlienFantasies/pseuds/Anna%20Marie%20Darkholme
Summary: In their own ways, the X-Men cope with the fallout of the disappearance of Phoenix ii.A study of the X-Men as the team stood in the 1980s, set immediately after the Nimrod saga.





	1. Magneto

**Author's Note:**

> These snippets are set around Uncanny X-Men #210. At the time, Xavier was in space with Lilandra and so Erik had taken over the school, acting as teacher/mentor to the New Mutants.
> 
> Mild warnings for discussion of religion. The views expressed are not necessarily the author's; Erik's opinions are not necessarily true or valid.

Erik thinks of the girl as he walks. Once he would have tried to recruit her to his cause; a part of him wonders what he might have been able to achieve with her power behind him. It is probably for the best the world will never know. Potential fire power aside, there was something else about the girl that drew his attention. Her anger, burning as bright as her power, when she attempted to lash out to mask her own grief and guilt.

As he nears his destination his mind is drawn back to when he had been forced to talk her down from murdering a group of mutant hating teenagers after they’d almost murdered young Katherine. She’d revealed part of her past to him, the horrors that had befallen mutantkind in her home reality. It had brought back his memories of his own experience in Auschwitz. After all the horror and suffering, it is an uncomfortable thought that in one future humanity repeated the sins everyone once swore never again to repeat.

Erik can’t help but wonder if he should have reached out to the girl, remembering when he was freshly free and the anger and guilt and shame still burned fiercely within him. As he had said to Katherine, he and the girl were kindred souls. He, perhaps more than any of the others, understood what it was to dwell in the valley of the shadow of death. Children of the abyss, he had said of the two of them; now it appeared the abyss had claimed the girl but once more let him live.

Stopping outside the synagogue, Erik pauses for a moment. It has been a long time since he passed being worthy of the forgiveness of God, and he doubts whether deep down he truly believes at all. Still, he has come too far now to turn back. He has always been a man of convictions, and once set on a course of action has rarely been turned from his path. Mind made up, he strides through the entrance without another second thought.

There is nobody else inside, a fact Erik barely registers. He did not come to be in the presence of others. With carefully measured steps his makes his way to his intended destination. Halting just in front of it, he allows the light it casts to flicker across his face. The Ner Tamid, the eternal light of God’s presence. He stares in silence for a few moments, then turns and leaves. He is not sure if he expected to feel something, not even sure if he did feel anything. All he is sure of is that he should leave this place before he sullies its sanctity.

As he strikes out into the cold, he reflects on the actions he has taken. Many of them he now regrets, not least the way he failed that girl. It is too late now to make amends with her as she is gone, dropped off the face of the Earth. For a brief moment he wonders if perhaps she is now at peace, her way lit by the flames of life eternal and some higher power. But, even to himself, such thoughts ring hollow and empty.


	2. Wolverine

Logan does not regret his actions. Given a second chance, even knowing what he does now, he’d still do everything again. Given a thousand do-overs he’d never once deviate from his decisions, his actions perfectly mirrored save maybe to strike faster, harder or more brutal. He does regret that he did not manage a clean kill. He had not imagined Rachel’s reactions, her instinct, her raw urge to _survive_ were so strong. Equal to his own it turned out. Maybe even stronger. As it was the wound inflicted, although fatal, did not instantly end her existence.

Logan knows the beauty of violence. He knows the ancient dance of life and death, the grace and serenity found where the two meet. Most others do not realise the peace that a violent end can bring if carried out cleanly and quickly. Not all violent deaths have that beauty however. Left alive, lingering with wounds that cannot be denied, death can creep in tauntingly slow. Fear, pain, anger, shame, loneliness; all can cloud the victor and conquered alike. Seconds can crawl by, minutes stretch unbearably, hours roll on to infinity. When each breath tears through the body, when each heartbeat pumps lead, when each thought sears across the brain there is no peace even in the end. So, although he does not regret his own actions, Logan does regret how things unfolded.

He knows the others are divided over his actions. Some stand by him, their arguments similar to the thoughts that had raced through his own head before he had acted. He had no choice; what he did saved the life of one woman and the soul of another; he acted for law, morality, what it means to be a _hero_ and an _X-man_. Others whisper behind his back that he was wrong. They believe he took an easy way out when there were other options; that in condemning one girl he also sentenced countless others she could have saved; that what he did was hypocritical and unjustifiable and _against_ everything heroes and x-men stand for.

Logan doesn’t care much for the discussions, as what’s past cannot be changed regardless. Arguing won’t change anything, won’t bring her back nor make him change his mind. In any case, none of them were actually there. They cannot truly praise or condemn him as they themselves were not forced into that situation, and therefore did not have to make the decisions he did. As such he brushes off all attempts to discuss what happened, focusing instead on the next disaster that will surely arise soon. That way, he doesn’t have to think to hard about exactly what he did and why.

The truth is, he didn’t just attack Rachel, wound her to the point of _death_ , to stop her from killing Selene. He saw what she was, deep down. _A weapon_. In her past, a version of the future they’d never know, she’d been chipped away at until she was little more than a gun to be aimed, primed and fired. Of course she'd  _claimed_ she'd broken free. It had been enough for the others. Maybe she even truly believed it herself.

Logan knew better. He still smelt the rancour of death on her. He saw the terrible truth in the way she moved. He knew from personal experience you can never escape your own past. Just days ago The Beyonder had tried to weaponise her again, and although at the last moment she’d fought and resisted him she’d almost been used to kill all life across the universe. Even if she had been persuaded to spare Selene, Rachel would have eventually killed again. It was what weapons did, all they were truly good at ( _what he did, all he was truly good at_ ).

 So he was saving her, saving everyone else, by what he did. He knows, deep down, he also did it partly for himself. He never told her, never told any of the others, but he saw a part of himself in Rachel. He too was a weapon at his core, created against his will. He knows he will kill again, and again, until someone kills him to end the cycle. If their positions had been reversed, Logan knows he would have wanted to be stopped.

That’s the real reason he did it. He believes, deep down, it’s what Rachel herself wanted, that some part of her was begging to be stopped ( _like some part of him continues to beg_ ). Those dreams she dragged him into, having him hunt her down and slaughter her, were her plea for help.

He believes all this because he has to. The alternative is something even his stained soul couldn’t bear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find Wolverine's voice challenging to capture, partly because it changes quite a lot depending on who writes him. In the end I've gone for the 'tortured samurai' version. This chapter makes reference to the events of Uncanny X-Men #207, Chris Claremont's "Ghosts" storyline.
> 
> On a different note, working on this made me think of one of the first X-Men comics I read, Uncanny X-Men #447 (the end of "The End of History" saga). In it, Logan and Rachel finally share a scene together and get closure over his "killing" of her. It's a pretty touching, if long overdue (even if you count the fact that Rachel spent the late 90s and early 2000s in continuity limbo)- I'd recommend it if you get the chance!


End file.
